GnuCash User Manual
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# How to use the QIF Import dialog

The "Quick Start" guide: To load your files, click the "Select ..." button in the Files tab to find the file, then click the "Load File" button at the bottom of the Files tab to actually load it.

Repeat this until all your files are loaded (read the explanation below to see why you should load all your files at the same time). Check the Accounts and Categories dialogs and make corrections if necessary. Then click the big OK button.

Why you need to load all your files at the same time:

There are two different types of QIF files: those that describe single accounts and those that describe multiple accounts. Both kinds to try to be "complete" in representing all the transactions involving each account that they represent. What this means is that if you have multiple Quicken accounts, with transfers between them, transactions will show up in multiple accounts. This means that if you aren't smart about catching duplicate transactions you will end up with wrong balances in GnuCash. Definitely a bad thing.

In order to get the best possible replication of your Quicken account tree, export everything you can from Quicken and then import it all in one session, either as a single QIF file representing all your accounts together or as a single file for each account. The importer's Files tab will allow you to load as many QIF files as you want, and to make sure that the currency, Quicken account name, and so on are right for each one. The importer can do a really good job of catching cross-references (which and marking them.

The importer is written mostly in Guile, and it can be a little slow on large QIF files. Load File takes 5-6 seconds for a QIF file with 1000 or so transactions on my machine.

Once you have loaded all the files into the importer, go to the Accounts tab, and then to the Categories tab, and check that the importer is going to put your Quicken transactions in the right place. You can click to pop up a dialog and change the GnuCash destination account name/type for any QIF account. Don't be afraid to change these destination accounts; they are merely guesses by the importer based on the name and type of the QIF account. Mappings of Quicken account to GnuCash account are written to a preferences file when you click "OK", so if you import other Quicken files describing these same accounts you won't have to correct the importer again.

Make sure (especially in the Accounts tab) that the QIF account names and transaction counts make sense to you. If you see that one QIF account is mentioned by two different names, make sure that the "QIF Account" for every file in the Files tab is what you meant it to be. If the QIF Account for a file is wrong, the importer won't be able to match up transfers correctly and your balances will be wrong. If a QIF Account for a file is wrong, select the file in the Files tab, unmark the "Auto" checkbox, and edit the text box to contain the right name, then click "Load File" again. You will be asked to confirm a reload of the file and then it will be done. Flip back to the Accounts tab, see if that fixed the problem, repeat as necessary.

When you are happy with the account mappings (double check them, and make sure to save your GnuCash session first just to be sure), then and only then click OK. If you click Cancel at any time, your accounts will not be touched.

Again, the importer is written mostly in Guile, and it can be a little slow on large QIF files. It takes 3-4 seconds to stuff 1000 transactions into GnuCash on a Celeron 433, proportionately longer on slower CPUs. You only have to do a large import like that a few times, fortunately, so I'm not too worried about it.

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Introduction to the QIF file | Up | The "Files" Tab